Behind the Badge - Many Years Too Late
Many Years Too Late
District Game Warden Zachary Biberdorf
For a game warden, timing is everything. Some days you may not seem to be at the right place at the right time, and others it works out in your favor. This past fall I was fortunate to be in the right place a few different times. One time in particular stands out.
The Saturday morning after Thanksgiving was a cold, windy and snowy. I did not expect to find anyone out hunting. My plan for the day was to take care of some things at our regional office that I did not have time to do earlier because of deer season. While on my way there I heard several faint gunshots. As I looked to the right, I saw three hunters in orange that had just got done shooting not far off the road.
As I pulled up, the hunters met me at my patrol vehicle. When I got out, I asked how the hunt was going and asked to see hunting licenses. The hunters said that it was going well. The hunters were a father who was around 50, and two sons in their mid-20s. One son said he had his license on his phone. While I was checking his license, the father and his brother went to their pickup to find their licenses.
I asked the son a few different questions. The most important question being: When did they arrive in North Dakota? He said yesterday, on Friday. I asked when they were leaving, he said tomorrow. He then asked if he could go and look to make sure their dogs did not miss any of the pheasants in the field. I told him he was good to go.
I asked the father and brother the same questions, to which I got a different answer. The father said they got here on Wednesday. I asked a few more questions before looking at their pheasants and equipment. I asked them where they were staying and if they had any birds there.
The father told me where they were staying and said they had all their birds with them. The father said that they had 26 pheasants. They had the previous two days limit with them in the pickup, and they were one short of the current days limit.
While I was talking to the group their dog brought up the last bird for their limit that day. I tried to ask more questions to get to the truth because I did not believe they were being honest. With no evidence to prove otherwise, I decided to investigate more after leaving the scene.
I called the hotel where they were staying and asked them how long they had been there. I was told they checked in on Friday afternoon and will be checking out on Sunday. I realized the father lied to me and they were overlimit. I contacted game warden Falch and had him meet me at the hotel. I called the father and told him that I had some more questions for them about their hunt.
When they came down to talk to us, I asked how many pheasants they had. The father said they had 36 pheasants, which was nine more than when I left them that morning. I realized that the father had lied to me that morning and they were clearly over limit.
The father lied several times, including saying that they stayed at a friend’s house from Wednesday to Friday. Game warden Falch called their friend to verify. The friend said that he knew the father but had not seen him for several weeks.
The father was then confronted with lying. I told the the truth is always best. The father then sighed and told the truth. He said that they came over and shot a double limit on both Friday and Saturday because they wanted to get their possession limit as they did not have enough time to hunt. We decided to seize all the pheasants and guns and cited all three hunters for over limiting each day.
A few weeks later my supervisor called and told me to look at the email that he forwarded. He was looking through old emails and found one that related to my recent case. My supervisor got some information about a family of hunters from Minnesota. The email was from 2012, providing information about a group coming to the area and over limiting on pheasants.
The information was not significant enough to locate the suspects at the time. When comparing it with the information we had found that day in November, it could not have been anyone else. All I could think about the rest of the day was the father had taught his sons how to do this for over 10 years. I learned that eventually luck does run out, even if it is many years too late.